


untitled

by plutodolohov



Series: thoughts of a dissolved mind [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Attraction, Diary/Journal, Emotional, Gen, Gender Issues, Introspection, Other, Romance, Sexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:07:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29270730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plutodolohov/pseuds/plutodolohov
Series: thoughts of a dissolved mind [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2149593





	untitled

Where did it go wrong? When did it fall apart? 

Honestly, I can no longer pinpoint any time. I cannot give you a grade level, a year, an event that triggered it. Any and all events that pertain to the problem exist outside of a temporal restraint; or rather, I have lost all imprints of time on the events. They simply exist in my headspace, lying dormant in a sea of thought, waiting to come and fester venomously, injecting all their sadness and doubt and self-hate into the stream of consciousness, like they do now. It’s close to ten at night, my time, and this seems to be a common occurrence, this festering. My room is lit only by my table lamp, sending shadows into the hallway beyond my open doors. I sleep alone on the bottom floor; the rest of my family sleep upstairs. The pitch black of my visible surroundings does not help alleviate my thoughts, but I still, to this day, make no room to dispel it. Why? To that, I cannot give you a clear answer. 

The events I speak of fall temporarily along an axis of around six to seven years, this much I know. Exactly where, I could not tell you. The problem may have arisen sooner than six years ago, or I may be predating it. In the end, it does not matter. The problem exists nonetheless. 

Attraction, romantically and sexually, is often one of the most misunderstood things, both in self-reflection and through external observation. When one is assigned “male” at birth, the societal expectation is such that this boy grow up to a be man, learning from his peers, the male adult figures in his life and society’s publications his role and his status relative to others, and is assumed to marry and produce children to continue the cycle. A dad is meant to teach his sons all he knows from his own experience and what his father taught him so many years ago, and to fawn and over-protect any daughters he may have. He is not expected to see his daughter as more than a fragile flower of glass, though if he does more, society props him up on a pedestal for his self-comfortable masculinity - in fact, if any of his children, male or female, deviate from the expectation society has, and he as a father encourages and accepts them, society places the laurel wreath of manhood and fatherhood upon his head. 

So then, what happens to the child? While society has in place set rules for its adults, it pushes those between the ages of 10 and 25 into an unbeatable obstacle course of expectations. While some may find shelter in the nooks and crannies of this course for short periods of time, every child, that is, every person between the aforementioned ages spends that time frame being pushed into one expectation and the next, constantly under the barrage of word-poison. While it is hard enough to escape the course relatively unscathed, those who dare to challenge the expectations of attractions and self-identity are hit hardest, some even sucked below through the floor to an even more hellish version of the course they were on. 

Why do I bring this fictional, metaphorical course up? Because to me, my feelings, the events in my life, almost everything that has happened to me, I find it easier to say in words. The words I write and read make an impenetrable defense around me, and cast a light into the dark abyss that looms ahead, clearing the way marginally, giving me room to step gingerly until I find my next obstacle. The words give me recluse from the voice in my head screaming into my thoughts my insecurities and my self-hatred, give me an escape from my own Minoan labyrinth. I am, at once, Daedalus, Minos, and the Minotaur. I am Theseus and Ariadne, and Icarus flying with wings of melting wax. I am my own hope and nightmare, and my words give me both a path forward and a name for the now. 

So then, to ask again, what went wrong? 

I say it all fell apart when I decided not to be normal. Normalcy, in this particular instance (there will be others) is to be assigned male, and to stick with it, to stick with society’s expectations. 

adk, 8/?/2019, ~10 pm to 10:30 pm


End file.
